


Motherland

by moreculturelesspop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Antenatal Depression, Childbirth, Depression, F/M, Female Dean Winchester, Male Castiel/Female Dean Winchester, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Nephilim, Post-Season/Series 15, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, graphic birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25787728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop
Summary: Deanna Winchester has a complicated relationship with motherhood. She brought up Sam and became Jack's surrogate mother, so why is she so terrified when the pregnancy test comes back positive?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95





	Motherland

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for realistic pregnancy and birth. Also depictions of depression and mention of character deaths. It's much fluffier than it sounds, honestly!

Deanna Winchester has always had a complicated relationship with motherhood. She was essentially a mother to Sam growing up. She fed him, dressed him, held him tight as he cried. She worried about him and cried when he hurt. She still bears the guilt of all the times she failed him. She could barely go through it then, she definitely couldn’t go through it now, knowing everything she does about the world.

She never thinks about motherhood outside of always carrying a condom. It just wasn’t an option in her life. Sometimes a child will cling onto her during a hunt and she’ll feel a pang of something. They’ll bury their scared little body into her shoulder and she’d hold them until their breathing calmed. It was because they reminded her of Sam, and not because she wanted a child of her own. For a second she felt broody and it’s a sensation she never wanted to feel again, carrying Amara into that house, looking down and feeling a linger towards the little human.

Then Claire came along, she was less a daughter and more like a niece she could impart her wisdom to. She sees a lot of herself in that girl, all the good and all the bad. With Jack it was different, she was his parent. She struggled to admit it, but he was hers. It easy to forget that he wasn’t a product of her and Cas. He was a perfect blend of both of them, she wishes he hadn’t inherited her stubbornness and all her other human failings. Jack would often fall asleep on her lap, trying to understand the film he so desperately wanted to watch an hour ago. Cas would read a book next to her on the sofa, occasionally glancing down at the boy, their fingers linked in the gap between them on the couch. She was proud of her little family, as messed up as it was.

When Jack has a nightmare he runs to her and Cas, when he wants an answer to a question they are there, when he’s hurt they fix him, when he’s scared they reassure him. So when people ask if she’s ever thought about settling down she considers this her own form of settling down. She had a partner, she had a kid and she had a home. Ten years ago she never thought any of those things would be possible.

So why is she so terrified when the pregnancy test comes back positive?

She had been a little carefree with contraception recently. Her and Cas are both getting on, things aren’t working as well as they used to. They’ve both died enough times, she’s pretty sure they can’t create life. When they run out of condoms, they are too caught up in the throes of passion to bother to knock on Sam’s door. When she misses a pill she doesn’t think twice about it.

With God dead, Sam dating and the demons under control by their network of hunters, there wasn’t much to do but fuck and fish (sadly Cas didn’t like the idea of doing both at the same time). She loves that strange little angel more than she could ever express, but she tries, in her own way. She takes him to a fancy hotel and they make love in the bath, they go on cinema dates where she usually falls asleep on his shoulder and they go out for dinner (she even lets him hold her hand in public). So why is she so terrified at the little pink crosses on the test?

She hides the test at the bottom of the bathroom trash bin and swears to herself. She paces around the room, her mind flitting between different scenarios. Was it going to kill her like Kelly Kline and appear as a strange teenager? It was a probably a faulty test, surely she was too old and beaten up to still have functioning insides?

So she decides to ignore the issue and carry on as she normally would. Except she throws up A LOT and starts craving grapefruit. Cas is going to work it out pretty soon, so she does the only thing she knows what to do.

“Cas, we can’t do this anyone,” she tells him. Her timing was shitty but she doesn’t know how else to deal with the situation.

She had woken up in the night from a nightmare where a baby had exploded from her stomach ala John Hurt in Alien, before throwing up in her sink. She gets up to grab a glass of juice and some crackers to ease the symptoms. Cas is up watching cooking shows on Netflix. This situation isn’t unusual. They had managed to have a whole secret relationship behind Sam’s back due to her insomnia. She would have a nightmare and he would visit, even in the days before the bunker. Sometimes they would sit outside and talk. Sometimes he would sit on the edge of her motel bed and soothe her back to sleep. When the bunker came along, he would join her in bed and hold her until she stopped having nightmares. That night’s insomnia leads to sex and then Cas becomes very interested in her nipples. He had always had an oral fixation but he was inspecting them like she was at a mammogram. He knows something is off, he knows her body too well.

So she dumps him. Less than half an hour after he comes inside her, she dumps him. Not her finest moment.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she says to his sad, shocked, heartbroken face. “We can’t do this. It’s weird and I don’t like lying to Sam.” That bit was true, she didn’t like lying to Sam but she couldn’t work out if he would be pissed or smug at the knowledge that they had been in some sort of relationships. She shuts down as Cas gets dressed and leaves, she can’t look at him because she knows she will cry. As soon as he’s gone she cries herself to sleep.

When she gets up the next morning he’s gone, no note, no message. She’s too busy hurling and peeing to miss him. He’s gone for nearly a week and she misses him every day. She has to do everything within her power to not constantly think and speak about him. Her breasts go up a cup size and she wonders if Cas’ would prefer them, when she naps on the sofa (because apparently growing a baby makes you really tired!) she wishes he was there to put a blanket over her and kiss her forehead, and she wants him there when she wakes up from a nightmare with stomach cramps.

Sam doesn’t think anything is unusual about her symptoms, or if he does he’s not concerned enough to talk to her about it. She’s always enjoyed a nap in front of the TV, that wasn’t new, but the weird cravings and throwing up certainly was. He had made one passing comment about the amount of grapefruit she was eating (the kid was definitely Cas’, making her eat healthy every day).

Jack knows it first. He’s in the kitchen having a disagreement with the coffee machine one morning.

“Hi,” he says with a trademark wave. “I was trying to make you coffee like Cas does but I can’t seem to get it working.”

“It’s alright, kid. I got it,” He looks at her with a tilted head, staring her up and down. “Are you checking me out? I gotta say, you’re a bit young for my tastes.”

“Something about you is different?” he says. He’s looking straight at her abdomen. She wraps her dressing gown even tighter around her, crossing her arms in front of her flat belly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she huffs.

She mostly goes about her weeks, refusing to look at Cas and splitting her time between the bathroom and her bedroom. She goes out to pick up supplies a few times, trying to find anything to help the bloating and the heartburn. Babies are everywhere. Everywhere she goes she sees a small child. An adorable small child, who looks up at her with big blue eyes. Maybe Lebanon has always been filled with children and she’s never noticed before? Or maybe they could sense the unwanted thing growing in her belly?

She’s in the drugstore, trying to find anything to ease her constant nausea, when the cutest toddler runs up to her and clings onto her denim-clad legs. “Mommy,” he shouts into her legs. His mother gathers the kid and apologies. He looks over his mother’s shoulder with huge blue eyes, as she carries him away. For a moment she imagines she really was that kid’s mother, that she would pick him up and kiss the brown curls and laugh at his little run. She can imagine Cas holding a baby, cradling it tight to his chest and whispering tales in Enochian. She starts to cry in the middle of the pharmacy because her sprog already hates her.

Pregnancy makes her an even better hunter. Despite the dizziness, fatigue and constant thought that she was always only a second away from throwing up, she could sense her surroundings so much more. She could almost smell the vampires before she saw them. Her belly is so small and her baby is probably the size of some fruit (who chose to measure unborn humans as fruit?) but her instinct is to protect it. She had never had much care about being hurt herself, just as long as those she loved were protected. It’s then she subconsciously realises she wanted this baby.

She wanted to have a child of her own. She wanted to have something good to happen to her. A baby was a win, right? She could retire and get her apple pie life with the man she loves. Cas won’t want this. Her and Cas were casual. They were only intimate when the world was ending. She was his last night on Earth. She had wanted to say she loved him in purgatory, but he stopped her, that’s when she knew that she was merely his human fetish. So she stayed silently in love with him. A baby would just be an anchor dragging him down to Earth, to the Winchester’s and their cursed life.

She goes home and reads up everything she can about pregnancy, about caring for herself. She buys all the supplements and all the iron-rich foods they recommend. She hasn’t drunk alcohol since that little test ruined her life (mainly because the sprog hated the smell of beer) but the coffee she will mourn.

“Are you wearing my shirt?” Sam asks. She is wearing his blue plaid, her shirts were starting to feel uncomfortable across her breasts. They’ve grown over a cup size in the last month and her belly is now visible when undressed. “No. This is mine.”

“Anyway, I have a case.” This hunt doesn’t go as well as the other. She’s so tired and sick, she has to wait by Baby whilst Sam deals with it. He finds her sat by the side of the Impala, dry heaving and rubbing her stretching belly.

“You need help?” she asks, really hoping he’d say no.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks. “I don’t know what happened with Cas but you’ve been a mess since he left.”

“I’m fine, a little sick, probably food poisoning from the Chinese last night.”

“You’ve been so hungover you can barely function. When you’re not drinking you’re bingeing on food, sleeping or crying. You’ve given up on laundry and I haven’t seen you in the gym in weeks. Whatever is going on with you and Cas, talk it out, for all our sakes.”

She doesn’t know how to tell him so she lifts up the shirt to show her little belly. “I’m pregnant.”

“Shit,” is all he says. “Get in the back, we’re going home.” She sleeps on the backseat on the way to the bunker and they don’t talk about her pregnancy until Cas gets back.

Sam calls Cas, tells him she needs him urgently. Cas crashes through the bunker in a panic, entirely confusing Deanna. She is tidying up the kitchen, trying to pile up the pans so they stop falling out the cupboard.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately scooping her into his arms. For a second she forgets she left him, and buries her head into her shoulder.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

“Sam, said.” She pulls away and looks at his worried face.

“He was overreacting,” she says with a weak smile. Fuck did she miss him, missed falling asleep beside him, missed waking up in his arms. She missed his gentle kisses and his questioning eyes, those dry lips kissing her shoulder and asking stupid questions during movie night.

“Can we talk?” She agrees, pretending nothing was wrong, and he follows her to her room. She can feel Sam’s eyes burning into her back, as she walks away with him. “What did I do wrong?”

“Why would you ask that?” she asks.

“I’ve given you space but I need to know what I can do to make this better.”

“It’s me, it’s always me. Whatever you want from me, I can’t do it,” she tells him. He looks so sad and it takes everything in her power to not wrap her arms around him. He’s trying to read her, trying to read between the lines.

“Something is different. Something has changed.” His hand is outreached towards her belly, he can probably feel the heartbeat, see its little forming soul.

“Hey! Hands off the goods!” She turns her body away from his touch.

“Deanna, you’re not?” His hand presses against her rounded belly.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him with a weak smile. “I’m not going to burden you with it.”

“You’re getting rid of it?” He snatches his hands away from her belly.

“Yes,” she answers quickly, she has no idea why, that thought had been and gone from her mind. “You won’t have to worry about it.”

“And you?” he asks, moving a piece of hair out of her face. “Are you doing okay?”

“Great,” she smiles. Google tells her she should be over the symptoms by now, yet she is still tired and nauseous, and disgustingly nearly choked on her own saliva the night previously. She didn’t realise how horny she was until that moment. All she can think about is pressing her body to his, for his tongue to be in her mouth, for his cock to be inside her. They stare at each other until their lips come together like magnets are pulling them into each other. She always felt it around him, this pull to him, the urge to kiss him. In hindsight, it wasn’t a pull, it was Chuck writing his tragic love story. She was his Juliet, his Ophelia, his Anna Karenina.

The sex is pretty spectacular. The orgasms she has given herself were pretty intense, but nothing was like riding him. She was wetter than she had ever been in her life and she had missed him inside her so much. From this new position, him sat against the headboard and her on his lap, he can reach her clit. With every flick of his finger, she feels every nerve in her body explode.

Afterward he wraps his arms around her belly and rubs at the curve under her bump. His touch feels soothing against the stretching skin. She wishes he could be there every night rubbing her back and belly, holding her hair whilst she pukes and reminding her to take her vitamins.

In the morning he’s still asleep, their legs entwined. She gets up and packs a bag, knowing most of her clothes soon won’t fit her. She takes one last look down at her sleeping angel, almost down to the last of his grace. Her almost human, who now needed food and drink, who now felt emotions. He had given up so much for their fight, he deserved more than to be tied down by another Nephilim.

She leaves no note. She doesn’t know what to say. Sorry, I’m having you baby. Sorry I can’t kill another innocent thing.

She drives up to Sioux Fall, almost forgetting the way (damn, baby brain!).

“Fancy taking in another stray for a few days?” she asks when Jody opens the door. She hugs Jody tight, hoping she wouldn’t ask about the belly straining against her shirt.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can’t I come and visit my favourite girls without something being wrong?” she replies. But when she turns down coffee Jody definitely knows something is wrong.

“Either those burgers have caught up with you, or you have something to tell me,” Jody kindly says, sitting opposite her.

Deanna just shrugs and says “I have some things to think about.”

She mostly does that thinking in the bed Patience has kindly given up. As much as she meant her offer to sleep on the couch, her achy joints are relieved to have a bed.

“Alex made some ginger cookies for you. I ate so much ginger when I was pregnant, it helped with the nausea,” Jody tells her, on day two of her stay. She sits on the edge of the single bed, placing the plate of cookies on the bedside table. “You want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about. I’m fine.”

“Sam called, he was worried. You just disappeared. He and Cas didn’t know where you were.” She hears her own intake of breath at the mention of Cas.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she responds, her voice cracking with emotion. “Demons and vampires, they’re easy but this life thing, with relationships and feelings, is fucking difficult.”

“How far along are you?”

“Four, five months. I guess,” she cradles the little bump in her arms. It doesn’t feel like her body, too smooth and hard to be natural.

“Haven’t been to a doctor?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure it’s…” she trails off, unsure how to explain her worries to Jody.

“Half-angel?”

“How did you know? Did he tell you? The bastard,” she quickly asks, holding back the bile forming in her throat.

“You look at him the way Luke looks at Lorelai in Gilmore Girls, like Johnny looks at Baby in Dirty Dancing, like Kristin Scott Thomas looks at Hugh Grant in Four Weddings!” She has loved, and pretended to not watch, those things for many years now. “What are we going to do with you two?”

She makes Deanna watch TV with her and Alex on the couch. She appreciates spending time with women who had some idea of the changes her new body was facing. Jody gives her some tips on helping ease her symptoms, and some things she wish others had told her. Then she mentions birth. She had seemingly forgotten that the baby had to come out at some point. It wasn’t going to be in hospital, not after Kelly Kline, and she couldn’t have it in the bunker. She had to form some plan, but just not today.

Claire and Kaia turn up one day with maternity clothes. Even the shirts she has stolen from Sam are beginning to get tight across her belly, and she has definitely popped a button off her own.

“I guess he or she a half-sibling?” Claire says, after Deanna thanks her for the shopping.

“I’ve stopped trying to work my family out.” She appreciates that Claire hasn’t brought her a collection of frilly, floral smocks. Some of the shirts are extra-large men’s ones, in her beloved flannel, and the maternity jeans as close as the ones she normally wears. The items she appreciates the most is a huge denim jacket that makes her nearly not look pregnant when she wears it.

“Castiel, he’ll make a good Dad,” Claire tells her. She takes it infinitely better than Deanna would in that situation.

“How did you know?” she asks Claire.

“I have eyes,” she smugly replies, making Deanna blush. She thought she had been so subtle with her feelings towards him. She had tried so hard to pretend he was just a friend, nothing more, but they kept getting themselves in such stupid life-threatening situations it was hard to not shout it from the rooftops.

*

After nine days, she caves in and goes back to the bunker. She is greeted with a “Where the fuck were you?”

“Way to greet your knocked up sister,” she laughs. Cas appears silently behind him in the war room.

“We were worried,” Cas quietly says, avoiding eye contact as she walks down the stairs.

“No note, no message!” Sam continues.

“What’s gonna happen to me, I get knocked up?” She says, throwing her duffel bag on the floor.

“Is it gone?” Cas asks. “Is our baby gone?”

“Does it matter to you?”

“I’m the father.”

“Didn’t realise you were such a pro-lifer.”

“I just would have liked to have been there, holding your hand. At least drive you home.” Her heart breaks because maybe she hadn’t given him enough credit. She slowly takes off her new coat, revealing that she is still very much pregnant.

“Tada!” she tells him with an awkward laugh. In the days she was away her belly has popped out and into prominence. Cas approaches her slowly, his hand outstretched until he lays it on her stomach. “It’s the size of an avocado,” She looks down at his hand, palm pressed against her shirt, fingers fanned out. “I’m not asking anything from you. You don’t have to care. You don’t have to be involved.”

“Why would I not want to be involved?”

“It’s a lot. I know. We ain’t getting any younger. Bet you thought once we offed God, you could live out a nice happy retirement.”

“Deanna,” he huffs, before pulling her into a hug. “I promised a long time ago I would never leave you. Why would I choose now?”

*

It turns out nothing about pregnancy is fun. There is no beautiful miracles. Just being uncomfortable, having weird sex dreams about Bill Hader and not being able to do basic things for yourself. Cas has to shave her legs and trim her toenails, it’s generally humiliating. 

She hates her body, hates her sagging breasts, stretched belly and wide hips. She hates having sex with Cas, doesn’t want him to see her looking like that. He was gorgeous and entirely unaware of it, which is the best kind. He would go running to the next waitress as soon as he saw how huge she was getting. Her body was once lithe and toned, a powerful weapon, but now she couldn’t bare to look at it. She had been able to hide her pregnancy for so long, but now she seemed to put on five pounds every time she walked past a mirror. She is starting to wonder if a monster has taken over her body, ruining every part of it slowly.

Sam, Cas and Jack talk excitedly about the kid. Talk about it which room to turn into the nursery, talk about names and hair colour, Sam even wants to put a birth plan together. “It has only one escape hatch,” is her response. She doesn’t want to think about those things. In fact, thinking about those things has made her physically sick. She wandered into the Target baby section to slowly back out in terror. So little, so many things!

Once that belly pops, it becomes property of everyone else. Old ladies touching it and saying it must be a girl because she’s carrying high, women wanting to tell their birthing horror stories, moms with I Love Jesus bumper stickers disgusted at the lack of wedding ring (you wait to you hear what she did to God).

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” someone tells her as she queues at the checkout. “I just loved being pregnant. People spoil you and the way men look at you, never felt more beautiful. Don’t you think?”

“No,” she snaps.

“I’d be pregnant all the time if I could.”

“I hate it! Can’t wait for the thing to get out of me!”

The woman never replies to her. Good.

*

She joins Cas, Eileen and Sam in the war room. She was up at a normal hour and feeling good. “What you got for us?” she asks Sam, sitting down opposite him.

“You’re not going on a hunt,” he sighs.

“Why not? I feel great.”

“Why not?” he scoffs.

“I’m pregnant, not dying of consumption,” she replies, sitting back with arms crossed.

“Deanna, I am not letting you hunt a wraith!”

“Me and Sam have it under control,” Eileen tells her. She keeps looking at her with sympathy, probably thankful she had been more careful with contraception. Sam had always wanted kids, seeing his bloated miserable sister had probably put him off fatherhood for life.

She gets so bored sat around the bunker feeling every ache and pain. Cas is mollycoddling her to no end. He asks her how she is every time she winces (which is most of the time), he checks on her through the night to make sure she’s sleeping on her right side with a pillow for support, he checks her tea isn’t too hot when she carries it across the kitchen and that she’s taken her vitamins. And she does it all because she wants this baby to be okay. She ate a whole pie and felt guilty that the baby may be harmed before it’s even born. She could at least give her kid a decent start in life. Every instinct she had the last five months has been to protect that little growing life. No matter what the final outcome was, she would make sure it arrived here okay. Even if it gets left in a fire station, or appears a strange if not charming adult, it would be healthy.

So she lies in bed (on that all important right side) and waits for the world to end. When she’s awake she feels sick, when she sleeps she has nightmares of a demon child ripping her apart. She loses interest in all TV and films, filled with beautiful people that didn’t have a monster ripping apart their insides. Sometimes, secretly, when she went to the bathroom she hopes to see blood and then her problems would be gone. But mostly she knows she has to have this baby.

Sam visits her. “You want to come out and watch a film with us. Maybe Tombstone or True Grit?” he’s using his patronising voice, the one he uses when Deanna has just witnessed something utterly tragic.

“I’m good,” she murmurs back, her eyes glazed over in nonchalance.

“You need to eat something. You love food, it’s like your main hobby.”

“I’ve eaten enough.” She’s been calorie counting all the food Cas brings her, she knows she’s had the recommended amount. Why waste time on anything else. Sam sits at the edge of the bed, hands folded in lap.

“You want to talk about this?”

“No” she snaps “Everything is fine. Miracle of life and all that shit.”

“Will you please talk to Cas. He’s in bits.”

“Why?” It’s a genuine question, she’s incubating his child, she’s taking his vitamins and sleeping on her goddamn right side. Sure, she’s not putting out like she used to but she doesn’t why he’d want to pound a beached whale with heartburn.

“Because he’s madly in love with you and you’ve just locked him out of your life. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. He’s given you space but you’re having a baby together, you have to at least look at him.”

“He doesn’t love me, shut up.”

“Have you even thought about the birth. Seeing a doctor? Taking a class?” She’d watched some episodes of _Call the Midwife_ and decided she was just going to be surprised by the ordeal. “This is real, Deanna. This isn’t a problem you can ignore and it will go away.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mutters.

Jack is the only person she enjoys the company of, besides her phone calls to Jody. She lets Jack feel how her belly grows and he tells her he can sense a strong heartbeat. He’s not touching her belly to patronise or to be creepy, he’s genuinely fascinated in the way it ripples beneath his fingertips.

They watch films together, play card games and she teaches him to play poker.

“Are you and Castiel going to get married?” he asks.

“No,” she snorts, laying down the card. “Why?”

“People who have a baby together sometimes get married.”

“Don’t think that is quite me and Cas.”

“Is that because your baby was unplanned?”

“That and the all the other things,” she laughs. She wonders how the conversation went when Cas explained her pregnancy to Jack.

“But, you love each other,” he says with a furrowed brow, “And you live together? And you have sexual relations.”

“No flies on you,” she mumbles. “Cas doesn’t love me. Which is fine. People have sex and aren’t in love with each other. He’s my best friend and there could be worse things than having a baby with your best friend.”

“Ah, yes. Friends with benefits,” he smiles before stopping to think. The kid had all of Cas’ expressions down, the furrowed brows, the tilted head, the shape of his mouth. She touches her belly and wonders if her own would look like him.

“We gotta stop letting you watch the CW.”

“I love you, Cas loves you. I don’t want you to die.” He flings his arms around her and they sit awkwardly on the bed hugging each other. She hadn’t considered that the only mother’s he had ever known were dead. Why hadn’t she connected that he only associated motherhood and pregnancy with loss.

“It’s going to be okay. No matter what happens you and Cas and Sammy will do the right thing.”

“We’ll look after it, I promise,” he looks up at her with unearned compassion.

“And if it’s not right, not good, you promise you’ll do the right thing?”

“Why would it not be right?” he frowns. Because she’s Deanna Winchester and nothing good has ever happened to her.

The baby starts to kick. At first it’s comforting, that it’s made it so far and she hasn’t screwed it up yet. Then it starts to give her nightmare, starts to keep her awake, starts to make her feel queasy. It shakes at her ribs, her kidneys, her pelvis. She had nothing prepared for the life flip-flopping inside of her. No nursery, no diapers, no cutesy onesies with a cheesy slogan, no formula, no idea. Why bother? It wasn’t going to be a normal baby.

“I’ve brought you soup,” Cas says.

“I’m fine,” she says. She’s sat up in bed trying to read, headphones playing Zeppelin on her bump. If she couldn’t see their child grow up, she was going to make sure they had good music taste.

“I know this is hard for you Deanna,” he says, sitting on his side of the bed. She still kept his side empty for him, a force of habit. The soup sits untouched on the table.

“Cas,” she replies with a croaky voice. “I can’t do this anymore. People keep telling me that this is supposed to be a wonderful time of my life. I feel horrible. These books and websites keep telling me that it’ll feel better soon but I feel worse. Every day this feels worse. It’s not like I’m going to be able to even meet this kid.”

“No!”

“Probably best. I’d be a terrible mother and this kid would probably be better never knowing me.”

“No,” he begs. She finally loses control and sobs into his shoulder. “Look at Jack, look at Sam, look at every kid you’ve ever saved. The world would be much worse without you here.”

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore!” she cries.

*

The Impala has never been in a better shape, it’s the only she’s allowed to do without supervision. She suspects after her outburst of emotion the boys want to keep her distracted. Cas joins her one day and watches her fiddle around under the hood.

“You look good,” he says. She was horribly round, even more so when wearing her yoga pants and cropped sports bra. It was comfortable and easy to wash, but she wasn’t going to win any fashion accolades for it.

“What do you want?” she snaps. He takes her hands and lifts it away from the car.

“I miss you.”

“I miss me.” He wraps his arms around her and brings them close. As close as a fallen angel and beached whale can be, at least.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I haven’t felt very social,” she snaps.

“Can I take you out. Just us, on a date?”

“You’re supposed to ask a girl on a date before you knock her up,” she snorts. He kisses her forehead, a gesture she had long fantasized about but it now felt patronising. He takes her hands in his and squeezes it, making her heart do a somersault. 

They go out to dinner and it’s good. They talk about TV shows, how Jack is doing in heaven and all the times they have annoyed Sam over the years. She appreciates the fact he doesn’t talk about her pregnancy, the baby and their possibly-impending motherhood. For the first time in months, she feels like a human and not just an incubator.

He drives her to and from the Italian restaurant. She feels brighter on the way back, entwining their hands as he drives towards the bunker. He walks her to her room like the courtships she had only ever seen in classic movies. Is there a Deanna in another dimension who spent her teenage years being driven to nice restaurants and being walked to her door?

“Can we talk?” he asks, and she nods. She gets comfortable sat up in her bed and he sits beside her, curling onto his side so he can see her. “How are you?”

“Look at me,” she responds, with her arms open. “How do you think I am?”

“Other than beautiful?”

“I’m not in the mood,” she hisses, avoiding making eye contact. She had always had a high libido, yet the last few months the idea of having sex revolted her.

“I can see more of your freckles,” he says. Her freckles appeared to have multiplied since pregnancy, another disgusting way this baby was ruined her body, “I have always loved your freckles.”

She places a hand protectively over her bump, feeling the little foot click against it. “You want to feel it kick?” He nods with wide blue eyes and places his palm flat against her shirt. He frowns, unable to feel their child. She lifts up her shirt and places his hand on the spot where they’re kicking. “It likes you.”

“I like them,” he replies with a dopey smile. “I love them.” She leans in and they kiss, she’s missed him so much. She wraps her arms around his neck and deepens the kiss, trying to ignore the flutters in her belly as their child greets their father. They spend too long with their foreheads pressed together, breathing in all the time they had spent apart. She feels his hand snaking up her top and towards her unsexy maternity bra.

“I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Deanna,” he says, his voice low. She lets him explore the new curves of her body, terrified he would turn his nose up at her bloated body.

“I can’t,” she says with tears in her eyes. “Please stop touching me!” He pulls back and sits up straight, alarmed at her outburst. “Fuck, Cas. Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. He stays for the first time in too long. The first time she croaked those words to him were imprinted on her memory. He held her so gently in that hotel bed, pressing kisses to her forehead, and whispering so Sam wouldn’t wake up in the adjacent bed. Cas strips to his undershirt and boxers, and she changes into a man’s extra-large shirt. He spoons behind her and firmly places his hands under her belly, cradling her bump. “Is this okay?”

“It’s nice,” she whispers. If only she could have this every night, him cradling her and telling her how beautiful she was. She feels a familiar feel that had been away too long, a desire in the pit of her stomach. She holds his hand and places it against the crotch of her panties.

“Are you sure?” he whispers, kissing her neck. She lolls her head back onto his shoulder and ruts against his hand. His hand gently sneaks into her panties, manoeuvring around her huge stomach. She doesn’t last long, she trained him well. He knows the right pressure, the right angle, the right speed to make her come. She had never been very successful in getting off with men but he had learnt quickly how to satisfy her. She cries out loudly as she comes, humping his hand with pleasure. Her afterglow is ruined when the baby gets hiccups and she feels the tremors against her vagina.

Cas seems to think things can back to normal. One orgasm cannot resolve their issues. She just wants to be left alone but he keeps joining her in bed, bringing her food and cups of tea that tastes like perfume. He won’t leave her alone for a second, not even to shower. There were protective fathers and then there was Castiel.

When the Braxton Hicks appear he is insufferable. The first time it happens she gets up too quickly from the seat. She quickly sits back in the chair and breaths, the pain soon goes away but Jack has spotted her. He alerts Cas who panics, running around like the bunker was on fire. She knows there is no way he can be at the birth.

So, she packs her bags and drives up to the cabin. She has to move the seatback to make room for her belly behind the steering wheel. The cabin is just the peace she needs. Her baby kicks her ribs in appreciation back. It feels good to be able to get up when she wants, eat what she wants and carry her tea with her from the kitchen worktop to the sofa. She sits in the rocking chair and enjoys the sunsets alongside a cup of hot chocolate. This what she imagines being pregnant feeling like. She left a note telling Cas she was fine, just taking a few days away to relax, but that doesn’t stop Sam and him calling nonstop.

She rakes leaves from the yard, washes the car and cleans out the kitchen cupboards before she realises she’s nesting. She probably should go back to the bunker but she didn’t want to go into labor on the road, and if she did make it how frantically annoying would Cas be as she labored. Against her better judgement, she stays at the cabin for over a week. She sends Cas a picture of her bump to let him know she was okay. She had stopped caring that nothing fully covers her belly, she let it peek out from under the sports bras and vest tops. No one is going to see it and judge. No one sees the pie she eats, or that she lays in bed until midday and that sometimes she slept on the sofa in front of the TV.

When she wakes up with pains that won’t go away she regrets staying in the cabin alone. She’s beyond unprepared for what her body is about to go through. She sits and cries for a bit, not because she’s in pain but because she’s about to give birth alone in the cabin where Cas would have to find her dead body and their maybe alive child. She calms down before she calls him, trying to hide the fear in her voice.

“Cas,” she says, taking a deep breath and rubbing her belly. “I think the baby is coming soon,” She hears him drop the phone and some shouting in a minute. “I need you,” she whispers to an empty phone line.

“We’ll be there soon,” he finally says. She hangs up and goes back to trying to breathe and calm her anxiety. It’s about 8AM and half her instincts say she should try to get some sleep, and the other says she should walk around. She goes downstairs and makes tea, before trying to nap on the sofa. She makes toast but she feels so queasy with anxiety and it goes untouched. She reads and watches TV, feeling the waves build up in her belly. At least the contractions distract her mind from the fact she would soon die.

As the pains ramp up she finds it more comfortable to pace up and down the room than sit still. The pain is bearable, but after the heart attacks and stabbings and celestial deaths she’s gained a pretty high tolerance. When a nasty contraction hits, she has to double over the arm of the couch. She can hear voices in the background but she can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from. She just has to get through the next contraction.

Sam breaks the door down. Suddenly Cas it at her side, his hand on the small of her back. “I’m here,” he says.

“You didn’t have to bring the family,” she says, seeing Sam and Jack stood in the doorway. She knows why they are there. She wasn’t just a woman having a baby, she was The Righteous Woman birthing the child of a rebellious angel.

“How are you?”

“Dandy, can’t you see?” she replies, standing up straight.

“I waited for you. I called the hospital every day. A receptionist named Dorothy became very angry with me. I was so worried, we were so worried.”

“I’m not going to the hospital. Look what happened with Jack. Sorry, kid.”

“It’s okay. I took classes on delivering a child and Sam brought supplies.”

“I watched a video on YouTube. It was not very pleasant,” Jack chimes in from the background. Deanna falls into Cas’ arms as the contraction takes over her body, her chin tucked perfectly into his shoulder. When the contraction ends she can’t bring herself to let go of him.

“Cas, I have to tell you something. Is this is the last thing I ever do…”

“You’re going to be okay. I will not let anything happen to you.”

“Cas, shut up,” she snaps, pulling herself away from his shoulder. “I love you. I’ve loved you a really long fucking time. I should have said it. Should have told you not to go all those times!”

“I heard your prayers, I know,” he whispers. “And I love you too. Everything I have ever done has been because of my love for you. You have always been my weakness.”

“You don’t have to say it back,” she murmurs. She leans into him again with the next contraction. “Maybe we should talk about this later, I’m a bit busy now.”

“Yes, you are,” he says softly. She can feel him smiling and stroking her messy low ponytail.

“Is she comfortable, should we move her to a bed?” Sam asks Cas.

“Sammy, you shouldn’t be here.” Childbirth is not something your brother should see. Sure he had walked in her having sex over the years, she generally found it hilarious, but childbirth was too personal. There was something with her and Cas that was too intimate for others to see, and right then she needed him and nothing more.

“Whatever you need me to do I will.” She doesn’t time to reply as she feels a gush of water between her legs. She gasps in shock as she feels it trickling down her yoga pants.

“It’s just your water breaking,” he reassures her. She’s embarrassed that her family had to see her essentially piss herself, she’s so embarrassed she wants to cry. “Sam is going to put some towels down upstairs and we’re going to get you to the bed soon. Is that okay?” She nods, still dumbfounded but it all. She groans again and he automatically pulls her into him. She rocks her hips to help alleviate the pelvis pain. “You’re in pain,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her sweaty temple. He places his hand against her forehead but she bats it away.

“Save it for the baby,” she hisses. She had it under control, the pain, the contractions, the humiliation. “I can manage.” He nods, his powers are so low he wouldn’t be much use but she knows that is why they brought Jack. “Jack, put the TV on. Ignore anything you hear, okay?”

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks with sad eyes. She rests her head on Cas’ shoulder and turns to look at her quasi-son.

“Winchesters, we’re strong.” She had to come to peace with her incoming death. Cas would bring up another wonderful child, a child that didn’t deserve her shitty parenting, a child who she would take her anger out on, a child who would end up leaving her or worse. She has left a note in the Impala, telling their child how loved it is, telling them stories about how she fell for Cas and how she didn't mean to leave them. 

Her and Cas stand embracing for the next dozen contractions. She buries her head into his white shirt, taking in his scent for comfort. He kisses her hairline, rubs his hand up and down her back and strokes her hair as she goes through the waves of pain. “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispers to him. She is comfortable as she can be, her arms around his neck, both of them swaying like it’s school prom. She can feel the contractions getting longer and longer, almost no break between them.

Cas helps her up the creaky wooden stairs to the little bedroom. Sam has stripped the bed and laid down new sheets over plastic ones. It’s horrifically embarrassing. She crawls onto the bed and stays on all fours, finding the position instinctively comfortable.

“Do you want me to stay?” Sam asks.

“I don’t give a fuck!” she grunts, leaning onto her elbows to cope with the contraction. She thinks Cas says that he should. “How the fuck did Mom do this twice!” She feels Cas pull her yoga pants and cotton panties down. She’s in too pain to care that he can see her cellulite ruined thighs and stretch mark covered hips. When the contraction is over she sits back on her hind legs and asks Sam to pass her a drink. She gulps the water from the bottle, hoping to get it down before the next contraction hits. Cas sits beside her on the bed, so she places a hand on his shoulder for leverage. “I don’t know how the fuck I can do this. The fucking pressure!”

“She’s shaking!” Sam calls out.

“She’s in transition,” Cas calmly tells him, letting her grip onto her shoulder. She’s probably going to leave a matching handprint on it, the way she is squeezing at it. She gets back onto all four, her trembling body unable to take the pain. “You’re a Winchester, you’re strong,” he repeats. “I love you and I love our child, nothing is going to happen to you or them.” She lets out a loud guttural screams and she can almost feel Sam wincing at it. She feels the bed dip in front of her as Cas sits cross legged by her head. She rests her palms on his knees and lifts herself up to face him. He starts to blow a calming breathing pattern that she mimics. With her hands on either of his shoulders, she breaths through it. She’s shaking and the pain is almost unbearable. She’ll take any of her deaths over it. She finds herself rubbing up against his jaw, enjoying the warmth of his skin against hers. Her hands fall to his knees and her head onto his shoulder.

Entirely on instinct, she uses his shoulders to lift herself up onto her knees and bears down. She makes little grunts and feels the pressure getting worse. “Is there a clock here? I want to know the time!”

“Do you want me to get you one,” Cas says.

“I’ll find one. She needs you,” Sam says.

“I can see the head,” Cas tells her. She slowly places her hand between her legs and feels her opening expanding. Her baby has moved down, bulging against her, and her lung capacity is slowly returning.

“Fuck.”

“You’ll meet them soon,” All she cared about was getting her child out safely, she didn’t care that is was going to kill her.

“I want to push.” She hooks herself over Cas shoulder, his arms around her, and she bears down. She’s thankful he has his super strength, she’d probably kill Sam is she put this much weight over one of his shoulders.

“Do whatever your body is telling you to do.” She realizes, once the contraction is over, that she is clinging onto his shirt. His back is tense and if he needs to breathe, he’d be holding it in. She sinks back to his eye line and tries to catch her breath again. 

He gives her a quick peck on the forehead. “I can feel them moving.”

“You’re doing great,” he tells with a dopey smile. Sam has returned with the large kitchen clock, she’s been in labour for sixteen hours. Cas and Sam have started to talk but she can only concentrate on the sensations in her body. Any noise outside of her and Cas stops existing. She clings onto his knees as she pushes, trying to ignore the burning sensation in her pelvis. Cas is tilting his head to see the action between her legs. “I can see hair, lots of hair,” He places his hand on either of her hips and she grips onto his knees. “You’re crowning.” The pain is like being set on fire and split in half at the same time. She can feel her baby come in and out of her entrance with every contraction. She dips her head into his shoulder and concentrates. Her baby is about to crown and then she feels it slide back into her again. Cas is describing everything. Thick hair! An ear! An eye! They have your nose!

“Get out, baby,” she murmurs. “I need you to get here safely.” She sits back up on her knees, a hand on each shoulder, and more room to birth their child. She feels the head come out and the pressure is immediate, like popping a cork out a bottle of champagne. She feels Cas’ hand between her legs, she can’t look down, she can’t see if anything is wrong.

“Don’t touch!”

“Just checking the cord,” he hushes. Her legs are trembling, the head between them. She wants to throw up. Is this the last thing she’ll ever see? She pushes their child out on the next contraction. It’s slippery and wet, and she’s terrified she’ll look down to see blood. She hears a scream, it must be hers, but she swears it doesn’t come from her mouth. A tiny, slippery pile of human is led between her legs, eyes closed and mouth twisted. “Hello,” Cas coos. He scoops them up into his arms and Sam is beside them with a towel. Cas carefully wraps the towel around the baby, gently rubbing it. “You want to meet your daughter?”

Deanna is still on her knees, shellshocked by everything. She looks down and she doesn’t see blood or gore, or anything that appeared in her nightmares.

“I don’t have anything. Clothes, car seat, a name. I can’t do this. No, she can’t be here.”

“We have it sorted,” Sam tells her. Cas is still holding their daughter, looking down with pride. She takes her in her arms and looks down in terror at the baby. She was beyond underprepared for motherhood. She lowers herself down to a sitting position, mindful of the umbilical cord.

“I can’t do this,” she murmurs, looking down at her daughter, her body slick with bodily fluids. Cas helps her sit back against the pillows, her daughter led on her breasts. She starts to make gurgling noises and it triggers something in her. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, mommy’s here.” She cuddles her daughter in her arms, feeling her hands reach out towards her sports bra.

“Is she okay?” Jack asks in the corner.

“You have a sister,” Sam tells him, proudly.

“You might feel the need to push again,” Cas quietly tells her. He bunches up the sheets between her legs for modesty. “It’s the placenta.”

She barely notices Cas cutting the cord, with assistance from Sam. Their daughter is beautiful, so small and delicate but so beautiful. She strokes her nose and her round cheeks, her full head of dark hair. “You came from me. I made you. You’re so perfect and I made you.”

Her body is so spent she sleeps for too long. The moment was so perfect she is sure she has died and gone to heaven. When she wakes up Cas is sat beside her with their sleeping daughter in his arms. She is dressed in a little black outfit that makes her look like a panda, ears and all.

“How long was I out?”

“A few hours. You needed it. You both do.” She struggles to sit up, wincing at the pain. It was like someone had jumbled her organs around her body, but she did appreciate getting her lung capacity back.

“Is she okay?” She looked too peacefully in his arms, this was either a dream or something was wrong.

“Yes, she is perfect.” He can’t stop looking at her, eyes bright with hope at the little girl.

“Is she, like me or like you?” she asks with a gulp.

“I am very low on grace, these days,” he replies with a smile. “I don’t know if she has any powers, but if she does we will deal with it. Both of us.”

“Cas,” she croaks. “I was so sure I was going to die, I felt like I was going to die. You missed so much because of me, because I was acting like a dick.”

“I love you.”

“What?” She looks up from their daughter, in his arms.

“I meant it. I love you. I did everything for you. I gave it all up, not because of the apocalypse, not because I wanted to save the world, but because I loved you.”

“You gave it up for one woman,” she remembers fondly. “Boy we never anything right, do we?”

“I think we got this one right,” he warmly says, looking down at their daughter.

*

Cas likes carrying their daughter around in the papoose. He always knows she is safe, strapped to his chest. It was the first time they had left the bunker since they arrived back. Deanna finally caved in and let Jack heal her postpartum aches and pains. They really skip over how awful your body feels after childbirth, it’s up there with being hit by a truck.

She sits down on the picnic blanket and takes her daughter from Cas before he sits down. “Hey Jude,” she smiles at the little girl. “Welcome to the big wide world.”

“And the world is big and beautiful because people like your mother have saved it.” She leans in and kisses Cas gently.

“I love you.”

“I know,” he replies with a smirk.

“Did you just Han Solo me?”

And they spend the afternoon telling Jude about the world around her. Cas tells her stories about his extraordinarily long life, about the day he remembers his father creating trees and flowers, about continents shifting and wars ending.

Everything about motherhood comes instinctively to Deanna. She knows how to hold Jude, knows how to feed her, can understand what she wants from every gurgle. Everyone takes it in turns to feed her, the Winchester siblings sleeping in shifts. She had never felt luckier to be surrounded by such a wonderful, caring family. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are adored!


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